Introduction by Laura Friend

Teachers hold a special place in our hearts as we go through life. Language teachers play a particularly crucial role in our education as linguists. Unfortunately most of us rarely express our appreciation for the gift of knowledge bestowed on us by teachers. I am therefore happy to spread the word that one of my former professors, James Augerot, Professor Emeritus of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Washington (Seattle), will be publicly honored for a lifetime of service to his profession, and more specifically to U.S. – Romanian relations.

Dr. Augerot (aka “Big Jim”) will be presented a lifetime recognition award by the Romanian Ambassador to the US. Why Romanian, you may ask? During the Cold War, Central and Eastern European languages were often lumped together, regardless of language group, based on geopolitical boundaries. Hence a scholar of Romanian found his academic home in the Slavic department. Fortunately for those of us who did not study Romanian, Jim was also an excellent professor of Russian, Bulgarian, Old Russian, Old Slavic and more. I especially appreciate having studied morphology (The Structure of Russian) with Big Jim.